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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



ing officers and admirals you need some- 

 thing except youth. Youth is undoubt- 

 edly a great asset in any business, and I 

 wish somebody would invent a scheme 

 by which we could work backwards and 

 get to it again. So, gentlemen of Con- 

 gress, in your wisdom remember that the 

 young commander is better than the old 

 commander, provided he has the experi- 

 ence of the old commander. 



Now, just one word about your ships. 

 There has been a good deal said lately 

 about the condition of the ships. I have 

 had much to do with it in the last ten or 

 twelve years, and I want to say to you, 

 do not lose any sleep about the condition 

 of your ships. You can sleep perfectly 

 well and with perfect safety in your beds 

 over the present condition of your ships. 



Now, about your men. The officers 

 are too old ; the men are too young. We 

 have struck an average which seems to 

 work pretty well. The men we are get- 

 ting now from the Middle Western 

 States, farmers' boys, are the best ma- 

 terial that ever put on a blue shirt any- 

 where in the world. Now I want to say 

 to you that I know these boys, and know 

 them well. I have lived with them for 

 years. I have rubbed elbows with them 

 for years. I know what they are think- 

 ing about. They always appeal to the 

 old man (and the captain is the old man 

 to them), from the difficulty with his girl 

 to the time he is going to have his dis- 

 charge and go into the liquor business. 

 And the old man has to advise them 

 about all this, and I have done it hun- 

 dreds of times. So I say to you that I 

 know those boys well, and they are all 

 wool and a yard wide, every one of them. 



Now about this great cruise to the 

 Pacific. 



The people of this country are the 

 most hysterical lot in the world. You 

 were hysterical over the Spanish War, 

 where there was not a particle of danger. 

 You moved your silver away from the 

 coast of Maine, believing the Spaniards 

 were going to bear down on you and 

 take it all away, when there was not a 

 particle of danger about it. 



Now about this cruise to the Pacific. 



We started out for a fight or a frolic, 

 and didn't care which it was. We didn't 

 want to fight. We had no ill-feeling 

 toward anybody. But do not suppose 

 for a moment that the Japanese would 

 be foolish enough to challenge for a fight,, 

 and it has been proven since that they 

 much preferred to be friendly toward us.. 

 I did not ask the President why he 

 wanted to send the fleet to the Pacific. 

 So I preferred to do what I was told, 

 and took the fleet to the Pacific. 



Some people imagined that we were 

 going to break down. Some of our for- 

 eign friends were particularly anxious 

 about us, and said that we would fill the 

 harbors of South America with disabled 

 battleships. But you notice that we 

 didn't do anything of the kind. We 

 started from Fort Monroe, and I assure 

 you the greatest anxiety during the 

 whole trip was on account of the measles. 

 There was nothing during that entire- 

 trip that gave me as much anxiety as 

 the measles and mumps and other chil- 

 dren's diseases that these young westerrb 

 farmers had. 



Some patriotic citizens of Canada in- 

 formed me that we were to be blown up< 

 first on entering the harbor of Rio and 

 later on in the Straits of Magellan. Let- 

 ters came, usually without any signature, 

 and it bothered me a little to know why 

 the Japanese Navy should inform citizens 

 of Canada that they were going to blow 

 us up going into Rio, and if they did not 

 succeed in that, they would make another 

 attempt at the Straits of Magellan. Go- 

 ing into the harbor of Rio, the letters 

 had been so positive that I thought, to 

 use a familiar phrase, I would try it on 

 the dog first. So I sent the colliers and 

 dispatch boat in ahead to see if they 

 might be blown up. But they were not 

 blown up. 



We had a delightful frolic from the 

 time we left Hampton Roads until we 

 entered San Francisco. We started out 

 with about one-third of our crews green 

 farmers' boys from the West, and when 

 we began our target practice in Magda- 

 lena Bay, two days after we entered that 

 bay, we broke every record ever made 



